Grim Ukraine War Anniversary, WTO in Limbo, Blinken’s Lula and Milei Tour, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, Ukraine and Russia enter year three of their wide-scale war. U.S. Secretary of State Blinken makes his first official visit to Brazil in Argentina. And, the WTO holds an important ministerial conference amid gathering trade gloom. It's February 22nd, 2024 in time for The World Next Week.

I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Ann Robbins.

MCMAHON:
Well, Carla, we're going to start in Ukraine because this Saturday is two years since Russia's large scale invasion of Ukraine. It's also around this time, ten years ago, that Russia illegally annexed Crimea. Now Ukraine has sought to both reclaim that territory and parts of its eastern territory, as well as winning the war outright. But things are looking pretty grim at this point. And we should know, you just spoke about this on our affiliate podcast, The President's Inbox with Jim Lindsay and Miriam Elder. But can you talk to us at this point, Carla, as we look at the sides posturing, making statements about aid and sanctions and so forth? What are you watching as we reach this point in the war?

ROBBINS:
So Bob, the Ukrainians have shown remarkable resilience and it's really important to remember that this war, while we've been focused on it just for two years, for them, it really has been going on for a decade and they have taken out a large part of Russia's Black Sea fleet. So it's not completely grim, but the news on the ground as we start year three of this phase of the war, it's really pretty awful. And there are a growing number of analysts who are beginning to ask how much longer Ukraine can hold on, especially if the U.S. Congress fails to pass more aid. And that's really critical. We hold a lot of their fate in our hands. 

Last week the Russians captured Avdiivka, which is a small city in the eastern Donbas, and this was described as their first significant battlefield victory since Bakhmut, the failure of a Ukrainian counter-offense of last year. And Russian losses were reported to be especially heavy and there was a pro-Kremlin blogger who may or may not have committed suicide afterwards, but he posted as many as seventeen thousand Russians were killed in the fight. But it was a Ukrainian defeat and it was seen as a warning of how much Ukraine's forces are struggling as they run increasingly low on weapons, on ammunition and on manpower. And the U.S. hasn't sent any aid since December, and the Ukrainians are particularly short on artillery shells. And I just read this morning that they are firing less than a fifth of what the Russians are firing, and that's really bad math. 

Western analysts were downplaying this strategic importance of this small town until news came that hundreds and possibly up to a thousand Ukrainians may have been captured in the retreat. And this is a huge blow to their morale at a time when they're talking about having a very large conscription, something that the parliament is resisting. So not enough artillery shells, not enough manpower and certainly not enough support for the United States. So this is a really bad situation itself.

The Europeans say they want to do more. They seem committed to doing more, but they really don't have the resources. Although I was really impressed when speaking at the Munich Security Council last week, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, pushed her colleagues to dig deeper into their own current stocks and said that she was committed to providing what she said was "all of Denmark's artillery." So with that sort of symbolic support and if the Europeans dig deep, maybe the Ukrainians can hold on in 2024 and start to do the rebuilding. But it's really on a knife's edge.

MCMAHON:
The European side of this I think is particularly important to focus on, as you said, that it was the front and center issue dominating the Munich Security Conference and obviously the killing of Navalny in his Siberian prison was a part of a piece of the Russian menace or what seemed to be Russian menace. The Europeans do consider this serious. Some take it more serious than others, the threat of what next if Ukraine falls scenario. But I do think as Denmark demonstrated, as other states certainly can, there's a way to get creative here, if not just purely ramp up in terms of arms and aid and so forth. I mean, are they really ready to let a coalition of Russia, Iran, and North Korea rally to start taking chunks of Ukrainian territory? And that's an overstatement, but still Russia has definitely benefited from Iranian drones and North Korean armaments to help hold its own while it rebuilds its capabilities.

And as you say, Ukraine needs the help of outside nations. It needs these anti-aircraft weaponry and protective missiles and just the ability to hold its current territory. I guess the final thing is that what western forces should be trying to do to galvanize this is rally around a coherent strategy that maybe something along the lines of what Bob Gates has been saying, the former U.S. defense secretary, which is like, let's treat this as holding onto the territory Ukraine currently has and doing the best you can and providing a bit of throw weight into Russia where you can as well.

ROBBINS:
Well, as you said, obviously there are differences in what would be a negotiating strategy. You're going to get Crimea back. Interestingly enough, right now we're talking survival and I think there are certainly some European countries that are willing to do more. And this has been a wake-up call certainly for all of Europe, which is why they're ramping up defense production. They're breaking grounds on new factories. They are talking about what they can provide in the near term, but a lot of this stuff isn't going to come online for a couple of years. So when Fredericksen gets up in front of the Munich Security Council and she says, "I'm sorry to say friends, there are still ammunition in stock in Europe. This is not only a question about production because we have weapons, we have ammunition, we have air defenses that we don't have to use ourselves at this moment that we should deliver it to Ukraine."

So there's still stuff there. And if the United States can't deliver it, they're going to have to dig deep and deliver it because I think the warning of this defeat in this small town really is that the Ukrainians, the numbers are not good here. And getting them to hold on for another year, but we have got to pass this aid bill. And I suppose the White House may have a plan B, there may be creative ways to do things that can be sold to other countries that can then be delivered to Ukraine that would not be in the spirit of what Congress is doing. But this is an existential fight for the Ukrainians. But honestly and truly, this is an existential fight for Europe and for us.

MCMAHON:
It is in fact an in symbol, it's a call to arms. And I think 2024, we may look at this as a pivotal year pro or con in terms of the way things go in this war. And as we speak, we still don't know what's going to happen in terms of the U.S. House deliberations, which continue to be ever more fraught. But I do think there is not only more resources, but some ingenuity that could come to bear in the European side. And partly I say that because what you mentioned about the Black Sea victory, which was in part a good deal of ingenuity in kind of outfoxing the Russian hold on the Black Sea ports and allowing not only some maneuverability, but the ability to get grain out of Ukraine, which is vital for Ukraine's farmers, for its economy, but also for markets that have relied on, especially in the Middle East and North Africa.

ROBBINS:
Well, Ukraine also has a difficult political situation. I mean, they are going to need more troops and their parliament is resisting this conscription. And this trajectory is really important for politics. And this is a democracy as well. It's a flawed democracy, but it is, this is a democracy as well. And obviously if they see defeats on the battlefield and they see if hundreds and potentially a thousand people were captured in a chaotic retreat from this town, the politics of this is difficult as well. But if Europe is going to support them and we are going to press to support them, they have to continue to be resilient. They can say, "We are fighting for you." And I think it's a legitimate argument they make, but they're going to also have to push forward politically and they're fighting and dying. There's no question about it. But we're going to push them to continue to do something that is really, really hard so that we can do something that's really easy, which is voting more aid. 

Bob, let's move across the globe to South America, whereas you said Tony Blinken is wrapping up his first official trip to Brazil for this G20 ministerial, and then on Argentina. This honestly doesn't sound like a lot of fun for him between Lula in Brazil comparing Israel to the Nazis and Milei's love affair with Donald Trump in Argentina. Is this trip all about damage control and avoiding trying to have as few joint press availabilities as possible with these two leaders, or is he hoping to achieve something more?

MCMAHON:
Well, it's about showing up. To paraphrase Woody Allen, 90 percent of life is just showing up. And I think in this case it's more than that though. It's two important countries in that hemisphere in the Global South, but also two kind of different universes in a way at the moment. You have the meeting in Brazil, which as we're taping this podcast was due to be wrapping up, and it started out with very strong comments or overtones about what's playing out in the Israel-Hamas war, especially in Gaza with, as you said, the strong comments from Lula. And Lula had what was called a frank discussion with Blinken for about ninety minutes or so before the G20 kicked off where they said they held different opinions on the way things are playing out in terms of trying to find a humanitarian relief for Palestinians huddled in places like Rafah, while the Israelis continue to push ahead with their plan to eliminate Hamas.

And you saw on display in a really strong differences of opinion, apparently Turkish officials spoke up as well at the G20 meeting about Israel's actions vis-a-vis Hamas in Gaza. And Blinken represented the U.S. which had vetoed a recent ceasefire effort in the UN Security Council, calls in the G20 for reforming the UN Security Council. So very much this overtone playing over things, and then one expects to have more discussion about the Ukraine side of the geopolitics concluding day with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister due to speak. David Cameron and the British foreign secretary has said he plans to speak out about Russia's actions in Ukraine. And so we could have some fireworks that are wrapping up the G20. And again, it's important for Blinken to be there to be stressing the U.S. role and goals. 

And then he proceeds to go to Argentina where the new president Milei couldn't have a more different position vis-a-vis Israel. One of his first trips abroad after being elected was to Israel, where on arrival he announced that Argentina would be moving its embassy to Jerusalem. He had warm meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, and he also, it should be noted, represents a country with one of the largest Jewish populations in South America, something like two-hundred-fifty thousand live in Argentina. He also though has a different sort of viewpoint on the Global South and global politics in general. Not a big fan of the BRICS decided to end plans for Argentina to join that. Obviously Lula is a founding member of the BRICS, his country's a founding member and he's strong proponent of this other global voice in international affairs. And then there's the U.S.-Argentina dynamic, and Milei is sometimes an abused term, but this case, I think it's safe to say he is a darling of the right in the United States right now. He's due to speak at conservative conference that takes place in the coming days.

ROBBINS:
CPAC, yes.

MCMAHON:
CPAC in the Washington area, I think it's at National Harbor, rumored that he might end up having a meeting with the presumed Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. And libertarian places like the Cato Institute have been regularly writing about what Milei could do and how important his objectives are. In Argentina for libertarian cause writ large. He's had already some difficulties in legislation in terms of trying to move forward with some of his more ambitious reforms because he does not have a majority political coalition. But at the same time, he's still moving ahead with plans to deal with the pesos value, cut government subsidies, which is always something that's easier to say than to do. He has plans to slash government ministries. I think he's already slashed him something like eighteen to nine. And so he represents a movement that he says was absolutely necessary to take advantage of this atrocious state of economic affairs in Argentina, which is true. Very high poverty level, crazy inflation level, much different than the U.S., by the way, although he'll hear an earful from the CPAC members about the state of the U.S. economy as well. 

So as I say, it's an interesting trip for Blinken to be making at this time both on dealing with the epic global affairs like in the Middle East and in Ukraine, but also regionally with two countries that the U.S. would like to consider partners, but from very different perspectives right now.

ROBBINS:
So the Biden administration has vowed to punish Russia for the death of Navalny. And here Blinken is sitting in the room with Lavrov at the G20. I must say that the Russians are not particularly isolated. I mean, they violated the most fundamental rule of international law, which is changing borders by force. I mean, they gobbled up Crimea a decade ago, they've invaded Ukraine and here he is sitting in the G20 meeting and ain't nobody walking out. I mean certainly maybe Blinken will walk out, but is the U.S. more isolated than the Russians right now because of its support for Israel in Gaza? I know this sounds like one of those just absolutely terrible false equivalency questions until it happens.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, it's a very interesting point to raise. I wouldn't say it's more isolated, but it certainly is finding itself where it should be in the driver's seat in terms of trying to drive a global narrative. It's finding itself surprisingly facing a combative pushback with some countries aligned with Russia. Some of it is realpolitik, some of it is countries that have clearly benefited from ramped up trade... read China and India. I believe there are Chinese and Indian parties that might be facing sanctions as part of some new sanctions to be announced as well, by the way. So that's going to be worth watching to see whether the expansive reach of the sanctions that Russia had faced go further and go after the parties that have been doing quite a bit of business with Russia. And that is definitely on display here. 

And again, this meeting in Brazil, foreign minister meetings are usually proforma and are sort of setting the stage for then a lot of sherpa, so-called sherpa meetings before there's the actual summit. Brazil will be hosting a G20 summit in November, but they came into this meeting deliberately setting the stage with a few things, including stating there will be no consensus document at the end of this meeting. Save that for the summit meeting. And even those are tougher to come by now. They want these officials to speak and speak candidly at these high levels and see where they can find common ground because there are other things on the agenda like addressing issues like poverty and climate change they would like to make some traction on. But the oxygen seems to be really consumed by the big issues and the big power frictions that are playing out from the chambers of the UN Security Council in New York all the way down into Rio these days.

ROBBINS:
And the U.S. is going to go back to the UN with its own security council resolution. And even as we're speaking, Brett McGurk, envoy for the Middle East, is over in Israel, trying to push Bibi Netanyahu to move forward with some sort of ceasefire deal. And this resolution would call for not going into Rafah and moving forward with some sort of a ceasefire, not the immediate one that was in the resolution that they vetoed.

MCMAHON:
And potentially some sort of hostage release. I think that some Israeli officials have said that they're following that aspect particularly closely. So things could be unfolding even as this podcast drops, Carla, on that front.

ROBBINS:
So they may have something more to sell in these meetings, but these are difficult, difficult meetings and the Russians seem to be riding disturbingly high internationally right now, and certainly in the wake of Navalny, one would think that they would not be riding high.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, the only other thing to note on that front is that you still are not seeing Vladimir Putin striding the globe too much because countries that have commitments to the ICC, for example, are loathe to drop those commitments, even South Africa and Brazil. But you still have a Russian foreign minister who's walking in and speaking out freely and despite some of the revulsion that was expressed up to the events of the last week.

ROBBINS:
So Bob, let's pivot to Abu Dhabi. This coming Monday, the United Arab Emirates is going to host the World Trade Organization's thirteenth Ministerial Conference. And these conferences cover trade, trade, trade: fishery subsidies, e-commerce. Do they do softwood lumber, one of my particular favorites? But the big question is whether they're going to revive the Appellate Body. The WTO was created to mediate international trade disputes, but they have not been doing that for quite a while, because since 2019, the U.S. has refused to have appointments of new judges to this appeals body, because they claim that it's had huge judicial overreach and that was a Trump administration position, and it remains a Biden administration position. Are we going to finally see a breakthrough in Abu Dhabi, some sort of agreement on the Appellate Body reform so the WTO can get back to doing what it's supposed to do, which is adjudicate trade disputes? And if it doesn't, is the WTO going on a long slide to irrelevance?

MCMAHON:
A lot to unpack there, but the short answer is do not expect reform to come out of this meeting. It's safe to say most people who watched WTO deliberations closely are saying divisions are so deep that there's likely not to be any serious negotiations conducted in Abu Dhabi on whether it's the Appellate Body reform or other areas of reform. So it gets down to matters of practicality. For example, our two colleagues, Inu Manak and Manjari Miller wrote an interesting post for CFR in the last couple of weeks about just urging the U.S. to kind of go to the mat to protect the form of negotiation on as plural lateral discussions, which allows smaller groups of WTO members to try to at least have discussions to advance discussions on areas like fishery subsidies and agriculture and e-commerce and so forth before they go to the full group of 164 countries. Because that formula of saying one country is able to weigh in and veto discussions or sideline discussions has added to the incredible difficulty of getting meaningful reform through. And even on this pluralateral discussion front, you're seeing pushback from India, which tends to crop up repeatedly as a spoiler, as well as South Africa and Namibia. So even on the sort of the format for discussions, we're going to have to see how that works out. 

Fisheries is a big deal. If they were able to just deal with fisheries alone, they would be something people could come away with that would be comforting because there is widespread agreement that the oceans are being overfished. I mean by some estimates by 50 percent, or 50 percent of the oceans, I should say. And the sustainable trade and growth is supposed to be an underpinning of the WTO. And also we should note by the way, that despite all of the concern and the consternation about reform, WTO rules still cover something like 75 percent of world trade. So these countries are still signing up to WTO, they're still accepting new members. East Timor I think and Comoros are going to join. 

But for their work to be meaningful in this age of real change and potential huge transition to decarbonize energy sources, for example, and all the tech discussions, this body is not built for this moment. So I think the host, UAE would like to come away with some tangible gains from this meeting. And certainly WTO Director Ngozi would like to, but it's not clear from all of the signaling coming up to this meeting. And this is a meeting held every two years and global trade wonks watch this closely. They are saying this is looking pretty grim on all the areas of reform. Let's also notice an election year for a lot of important countries that have trade issues, United States, certainly among them. And you mentioned the U.S. position on the appellate body, but also on trade issues in general has been problematic in terms of ramping up subsidies for some of its homegrown industries. And then India, which has its upcoming big elections and it's dealing as we speak with farmer protests over a whole host of things including pricing. So I think just all of the things arrayed against it just feels like you're not going to see anything major come out of these meetings, Carla.

ROBBINS:
Sigh.

MCMAHON:
I don't know what else you can say at this point other than that, as I said, you have this confounding situation where you have many of the people, certainly this meeting in Abu Dhabi will acknowledge and will point to the gains made by trade over the past decades in terms of lifting billions, with a B, of people out of poverty. And yet at this crunch moment layered on top of these geopolitical tensions, which we've already talked about, it seems to be little room for some practical advancement.

ROBBINS:
We talked about this with the Munich Security Conference and their report going into this, lose-lose.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, exactly.

ROBBINS:
This fracturing of interest. And there was a time when the Republicans were pro-trade and the Democrats were more worried because they were the party of unions. In the United States, there's nobody arguing for trade, and that seems to be going around the world.

MCMAHON:
You just had the Teamsters announce they're going to be giving a donation to the Republican Party, something you haven't seen in decades. So it's a changing world we're in. 

Carla, we've talked ourself into the audience figure of the week. This is the part of the podcast in which listeners vote every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR_org's Instagram story. And they picked this week the figure, Nasser Hospital as in, "The WHO Reports Gaza's Nasser Hospital Not Functional." Why is the fate of Nasser Hospital making the headlines, Carla?

ROBBINS:
This is really depressing this week. So this is Gaza's second-largest hospital, and it is in southern Gaza where a majority of the population has fled. So the WHO's report that it's no longer functional means that the health system is one step closer to complete collapse. And reportedly of Gaza's three dozen hospitals at the start of this war, only eleven are still partially functional, and three are at minimal capacity. So those stats are really, really concerning. 

These Israelis continue to insist that Hamas leaders are hiding in and under health facilities and they've offered only very limited evidence. But the New York Times crunched a video of a tunnel underneath Al-Shifa Hospital, which is Gaza's largest, and you remember the destruction there in the beginning. And they crunched some other evidence and they found it persuasive enough to write that it "suggests Hamas use the hospital for cover and stored weapons inside it and maintained a hardened tunnel beneath the complex." So this is problematic, but it's also violating all sorts of international laws that you don't go after health facilities. There's no question about the humanitarian disaster that's been created by raids on Al-Shifa, on Qatari Hospital, on the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Al-Rantisi Specialized Hospital for Children, and now the Nasser Hospital. Whether it's a question of human shields, whether it's a question of international law, what we know is that there's almost no healthcare left in Gaza.

And the WHO said that after being denied access to the Nasser Hospital, it did manage to transfer two dozen critically ill patients out of the complex. But in its statement, it issued concern about another 130 patients, which were still there, saying that there is no electricity or running water. Medical waste is piling up, garbage. The Israelis dispute that. They say their troops are delivering aid and that the hospitals continue to function. It's very hard. You can't get reporters in there. We don't know. What we do know is that the system itself...when you take the WHO, which you have to sort of take their word and they say that the system across the board is close to collapse.

MCMAHON:
And it's on top of everything else, and we mentioned previously that there does seem to be diplomacy taking place in a pretty stepped up manner right now about at least a ceasefire and provisioning aid into the area. But the situation gets more difficult, complicated agonizingly tough to sort out, and in part because of the things that you mentioned in terms of the entanglement in some cases of Hamas, in some of these areas. We had the accusation, which I think has been borne out in some cases of the UN's agency for Palestinians relief, UNRWA, having some of its members, I think twelve of its members actually working in concert with Hamas.

ROBBINS:
Allegedly participating I think in the October 7th attacks. Wasn't that the allegation?

MCMAHON:
Correct. That's the allegation, right. And that immediately caused causes suspension of donations including the two main donors, which is the United States and Germany. And so that agency is under scrutiny. And it's one thing after another, and it's just, again, there are so many difficult spots, but I think it's got to start with provisioning some sort of safe delivery of aid and trying to then come up with some sort of an off-ramp as well. And none of this is easy because the Israelis are intent on eliminating Hamas and saying they will not stop until that happens. In the middle of it all, there's hostages,

ROBBINS:
And this latest, the Israelis seem determined to go into Rafah, which were at this point, the majority of the population fled south because that was supposed to be the safe place. And Benny Gantz, who's a member of Israel's work cabinet, who is at least saying some positive things about the ceasefire talks, which Netanyahu rejected last week. He also warned on Wednesday that Israel is going to advance into Rafah, even during Ramadan. But he also said once the civilians there're evacuated, but we don't see any plan for an evacuation. 

The U.S. has become more and more outspoken, warning against what would be a disaster about going into Rafah itself. So it is a very incredibly grim situation. And these Israelis say that they're putting aid in, but nowhere near enough aid. I mean all the reports about the levels of malnutrition, about the levels of disease. And there was this very chilling modeling by epidemiologists at the Johns Hopkins University in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that I read about yesterday. I think I read about it in the Times. And these epidemiologists were predicting that even with no change in the current level of fighting or humanitarian access, there could be an additional fifty-eight thousand Gazans killed over the next six months, in addition to the twenty-nine thousand who've already reportedly died. And they said, even with an immediate and sustained ceasefire and no outbreak of major infectious, diseased, another six thousand five hundred could die over that time period. This is just a terrible situation on the ground and there really does need to be some resolution to this.

MCMAHON:
And the country on the other side of the Rafah border crossing, Egypt, again, is not willing to be opening up and accepting large streams of refugees. And there's all sorts of understandable reasons for that, but it just further compounds the difficulty there.

ROBBINS:
Well, I mean, their reasons for not wanting it, range from not wanting to let Hamas into...they have their own fears of terrorism and their fear that the Israelis would never let the Palestinians back into Gaza. And when you listen to what the Netanyahu government has been saying about who will run Gaza afterwards, that they're still rejecting a two-state solution. They're still rejecting the notion of a revamped PA running Gaza itself. They don't want to drain Gaza. There's a lot of diplomatic work that needs to be done there.

MCMAHON:
And we should say a revamped PA is a difficult project in and of itself. There would be a ton of support, and then right now, there's a huge debate over the merits even of that. So it's just so difficult. 

That's our look at The World Next Week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. Israel will be holding local elections. The U.S. and Thailand host the Cobra Gold War Games in the Gulf of Thailand. And Belarus holds "parliamentary elections."

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it. We appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at [email protected]. The publications mentioned in this episode as well as a transcript of our conversation are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the hosts, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Today's program was produced by Ester Fang and Sinet Adous, with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. And special thanks to our intern Olivia Green for her research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Marcus Zakaria. This is Carla Robbins saying so long.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and be careful out there.